Skeletons in the Closet
by dickard23
Summary: Brenda's past from the CIA catches up to the present. Does she still have what it takes to stay ahead of the people who want her dead? Includes minor characters and invented characters. Not sure, how much of the Closer will be in this story. It's kind of a separate project for Brenda Leigh.
1. He Wants Revenge

Brenda was asleep. Fritz had already gone to work. Brenda had the day off. The house phone rang.

"Hello."

"Get out."

"Who are you?"

"Just get out. You don't have a lot of time." The caller hung up. Brenda grabbed her gun and holster and threw on a pair of pants. She looked out her window and didn't see anyone. She went out when she got a phone call. Just in case, she grabbed her shoes and her cell phone. She threw Joel in his carrier and drove out of there.

She hadn't gotten a call like this in a long time, but she prepared for the worst.

Five minutes later, armed gunman stormed the place. They searched every room to find an empty apartment. They looked for a laptop but Fritz had his, and Brenda's was at work.

Brenda couldn't go to her office. If there were bad guys coming for her, that is the first place they would look. She thought Elaine might be able to help. She called her from a pay phone.

Elaine had gone back to the CIA after Brenda found the mole. She answered the phone.

"Hello."

"It's me, Brenda."

"Long time since I heard your voice. What's going on?"

"I just got this phone call telling me to leave my house. Do you know if there's any chatter in the company?"

"I haven't heard anything. Should I get going too?"

"I don't know yet. Be careful."

Brenda went to buy a throw phone. She paid cash and left briskly. She got in her car and called Andrew.

He answered, "Who is this?"

"Gwen."

"Gwen?" He thought for a minute. "Oh you. I take it you got my message."

"What's going on?"

"Remember Potovsky?" He was a Russian bomb-maker. He had a team who would help him by doing his dirty work. Brenda was investigating them with the Agency. He got arrested; the rest were killed in an explosion.

"What about him?"

"He escaped from prison."

"How?"

"He paid millions of dollars to have armed gunman be there when he was to be transported. They took out the officers surrounding him. and he made off."

"How long as he been missing?"

"About a week"

"About? Why am I just finding out now?"

"The Russians haven't admitted that they lost him. He might have had inside help. We only found out through intelligence. You and your former team need to be careful."

"Where do I go? I can't go home or to work. What about my husband?"

"We can send a liaison officer to bring him up to speed. You need to lie low."

Brenda turned off her cell phone and pulled out the battery. She found a cheap motel that took cash and asked for no names or anything. She rented a room and smuggled Joel upstairs. She didn't have a lot of cash. She couldn't go to the ATM. She was in a jam.

Washington, DC

Caitlin and Taylor were waiting for an informant to arrive. Taylor noticed the same car circling the block. She signaled Caitlin. They both looked for nearby cover. They saw concrete pillars and when the car came back they moved behind them. Gunshots rang out. These guys had semis and they meant business. They shot up the scene. The two women were shielded from the violence. When the shots stopped and the car squealed away. Taylor looked up. She chased down the car, gun drawn but it was gone.

"So much for our informant," Caitlin said. "We need to call this in."

Marshall and Damien were in the office. Damien picked up the phone. "They tried to what?" We're on our way. Marshal and Damien picked them up in an armored van and drove them back to the agency. Caitlin's boss was waiting for them. He told them that this was personal.

Potovsky escaped and all of them were in danger, except Damien. He wasn't on the team when it all went down. "I go where they go," Damien said.

"Fine. You all need to lie low until we figure this out."

Taylor sighed. She hated protective custody. It sucked balls.

Once boss was gone, the four regrouped. "This sucks major ass. I'm sick of hiding at home while a bunch of other agents try and watch over us."

"Do we have a choice?" Damien asked.

"We always have a choice," Marshall answered.

"We can stand up and fight, find his men, get there first and take him DOWN!"

The group all looked at each other in agreement.

"One thing first," said Marshall.

"We have to find our leader, before the Russians do."


	2. Get Gone

Brenda rubbed Joel. He was not happy being cooped up in this tiny room.

Brenda needed more ammo. She only had her pistol and one clip. She also needed cash. She only had $47. She called Elaine.

"Potovsky escaped."

"Shit! What are you going to do?"

"I need to get out of here, but I am low on supplies. I only have a clip and a couple of twenties. I also have Joel."

"Joel?"

"My cat."

"Do you know where the abandoned train tracks are in San Pedro?"

"Yeah."

"Meet me there in an hour."

Brenda bided her time. She watched the door and the window. You never leave your back turned where someone can get you.

Washington, DC

The team got together. They grabbed pistols, shotguns, ammunition, smoke bombs, rope, flashlights, knives, hi-powered binoculars. They took fake identification, new cell phones, lots of road maps- they avoided having GPS in the car so they didn't get tracked, water bottles, and provisions. They loaded the van and got ready to go.

"Wait up!" Their lab expert, Griffin came running up behind them.

"Griff! What is it?" He was Caitlin's cousin and Taylor's on again off again boyfriend.

"You're not going to take me?"

"We need you here. We need someone to track Potovsky and his men. You're too valuable to risk."

Griffin was sad. He knew he had to stay, but he didn't want to see his family going into danger without him. A lot had changed since he left the core, but one thing stayed the same. He never left any man behind.

"We also need you to find Peaches."

"I'm on it."

Griffin hugged his comrades and headed back to his lab. Besty, his snake, was slithering around in her terrarium. It was huge and filled with branches, a pool, and caves.

He couldn't call her because he didn't want Potovsky to trace him. Instead, he called the utility company and said there might be a gas leak at her house. When the company arrived to check it out, they that the lock had been busted. The apartment had been turned up side down. They saw no sign of gas, but didn't know what to do about the scene. They eventually called the police and reported it.

Griffin was watching LAPD's call logs. When he saw an officer was dispatched to the location, he hacked in to see what they found. "A ransacking had been reporting. No one at the home. The officers arrived, no signs of a struggle."

"Phew! She wasn't home."

He called Andrew.

"Hello"

"It's me, Griff. Have you heard from Peaches?"

"She's lying low until this blows over."

"Where?"

"That's why it's called lying low. I have no idea."

"I need to find her."

"Potovsky could be tracing you. If people from Russian goverment helped him escape, those same people could be helping him now."

"I have to try. She can't do this alone."

"She doesn't need to do anything. We have a manhunt underway. We will take him down."

"What if they don't find him in time?"

"It's not my call. It's not yours either."

Griffin hung up. He needed to find her and get her safe.

Andrew sighed. The youngings never listened when they didn't like what you had to say. What the hell was he going to do about this. They made up their minds already. This was going to be a firefight. Andrew sat down with his coffee.

Elaine grabbed her burn bag. She had a bunch of cash, some American, some Canadian and some Euros. She took out some of the American money and some of the Canadian. She went downstairs and made a fake ID for Brenda. She grabbed some ammo and a taser. Brenda needed this stuff more than she did. Elaine had nothing to do with Potovsky.

She drove down and parked several blocks from the gas station. She made sure no one followed her. She walked up, seeing a blonde figure in the distance holding some type of box.

They met halfway. Brenda hugged her. "Thank you for coming."

"You would do the same for me."

Brenda nodded. Elaine gave her the bag. "This should help you get out of town. There's a safehouse in the Mohave desert. Here are the coordinates. Bring a lot of water. They're not much out there."

Brenda handed Elaine Joel. "Can you get him to Fritzi?"

"Of Course." They said their goodbyes, and Brenda was off. She filled her car with gas, filled the trunk with water, filled the backseat with non-perishable food and other provisions. She drove out of the city and headed for the desert.

Elaine passed the apartment but kept driving when she saw the police. She took Joel home, waiting to figure out how to tell Fritz his wife wouldn't be coming home.

When Chief Pope was checking in with the various departments, he learned officers had been dispatched to Chief Johnson's house. He demanded an update.

"Commander Taylor. Where's Major Crimes?"

"You gave them the day off, Sir."

He sighed. "Well, someone broke in to Chief Johnson's house. I need them here, now. Also, where is she?"

Taylor called her husband, who was surprised she wasn't lounging at the house. He found out there was a break-in, and he rushed home. There was no sign of his wife, her car, or Joel. Someone had ransacked the place. Fritz was asked if anything was missing. He looked and Brenda's purse was still there. That was odd. He looked further, her gun was gone, and her phone wasn't in her bag. He called it. No answer. He needed someone to track it.

"Her gun is gone," Fritz finally said. "So is her phone and our cat."

He called the FBI office and asked for someone to trace his wife's phone. They tried but there was no signal.

"So her phone is dead?"

"No. You can still trace a dead phone. It's either destroyed, or someone took the battery out."

Major Crimes was reconvened. They rushed to Chief Johnson's home to find her anxious husband without a clue was to what was going on.

"The door was definitely kicked in," said Tao. He photographed the busted lock.

"Someone was looking for something." Gabriel added. "Was her laptop here?"

"No. She didn't bring it home last night."

"I don't see any blood," added Sanchez.

"Her car's not out front," Flynn said.

"Maybe she fled," continued Provenza.

"From whom?"


	3. Bang Bang

Washington, DC

Griffin analyzed the evidence from the shootout. The gunman used an AR-15. Bullets ricocheted all over the place. He looked at the photos of the tire treads left by the car. He scanned them into the database. They matched a 2008 Chevy Impala. He looked for the car using traffic cams and hacking into any store camera nearby with wireless access.

He found the car driving on the beltway. He got a license plate and sent a request to the DMV.

Nevada

Brenda was all alone. It was about a 4 hour drive to the desert. She didn't want to run out of gas, so she re-filled the tank half way there. She kept driving. She had a long way to go.

Los Angeles

Fritz got a phone call to go back to the office. When he got there, Elaine was waiting for him with Joel.

"Elaine, do you know what happened to my wife?"

"She had to flee." She handed Joel to Fritz. "A very bad man escaped from jail in Russia, and he vowed to take out Brenda when he got out."

"How come no one ever mentioned this before?"

"He wasn't supposed to get out. He has 14 life sentences to serve. We think he paid some officials to arrange for his escape."

"Has he arrived in the US?"

"We don't know, but gunmen tried to kill her former team in DC. They got ambushed earlier this morning."

"Brenda can't do this alone. How do I find her?"

"I have no idea. She didn't want you to get killed. She said this was her fight."

"What do I do?"

"Stay where she can find you. If she reaches out to you, do what she says. This isn't her first rodeo."

Fritz was distressed. When he went to work this morning, he expected to come home to his wife. It really sank in how fragile their lives are. He always worried about her present work. He never thought about her past coming to haunt them.

Virginia

The foursome drove mostly without speaking. They had a long trip ahead of them. Taylor drove first. Marshall got a text from Sophie Wallace, a shell identity used by the CIA to move ecstasy in Vancouver. "I have a new order coming in. Wanna buy?" Marshall called the number. He got Griff.

"The car that the gunman used in the drive by was a red Chevy Impala, 2008. It was last seen on the beltway. The license plate number is …."

"Thanks Sophie." Marshall relayed the information. Damien kept his eyes out for the car.

Nevada

Brenda found the safe house. She didn't want to have her car seen there, so she dropped off her stuff and then drove out to the nearest town. She saw shady looking guy and sold her car for cash. He didn't even ask for a title or any paperwork. She took the $2000. In another part of town, she bought a moped and a helmet. She filled it up and rode out to the safe house. She pulled the bike inside and got rid of any tracks that could be seen in the dirt.

She went and explored the place. It looked like an abandoned house from the outside and there was a bunker downstairs. It was hot down their. Brenda knew it would get cold at night so she brought down all of her blankets.

Brenda rationed her water. She wanted to just soak in it, but she didn't know how long she would be here.

Los Angeles

Fritz was relieved that his wife was alive, but he was scared. Where could she go? What if they found her? What if she couldn't come back. He went home and changed the locks. He installed a deadbolt. Joel went and took a nap. He had a long day too.

Major Crimes

"What do we do?" asked Sanchez.

"What do we know?" asked Flynn.

"We know that she bolted," Gabriel started, "her car, phone and gun were gone and there was no sign of a struggle."

"We know that someone came and ransacked her house afterwards," added Tao.

"How did the police get there?" asked Provenza.

Tao looked at the report. "The gas company came. They were told there was a leak. They arrived and saw the mess."

"So the landlord called them?" asked Flynn.

"No," Gabriel responded. "He said he didn't call, and he knew nothing about it."

Tao got ahold of the gas company's phone records. "It was an unlisted number in DC."

"The Agency called," Provenza concluded. "They wanted to make sure Brenda got out, and they didn't want to call themselves, so they made up the gas leak to get someone to check out the house."

"So one of her old cases is coming back," said Flynn.

"Maybe we should stay out of this," said Tao. "This could be quite dangerous."

"She could need us," Gabriel insisted. "We can't stand down."

"You can and you will," said Chief Pope entering the room. "If we try to find her, we could just give away her position to the Russians. We must stay out of this, that's an order."

The team was unhappy, not that they knew how to find her anyway.

Tennessee

They filled the tank. They took turns going to the bathroom, making sure two people were always with the car. They got out of there.

Taylor was napping in the back. Marshall was next to her, and Caitlin was in charge of the maps.

Two hours went by and there was nothing interesting going on, until Marshall Caitlin noticed a red Chevy Impala. She took out her binoculars. It was definitely the car. She told Damien. He kept his distance, but he made sure that the car stayed in Caitlin's sight. They followed the path of the car and it led them to a warehouse in Knoxville. They parked the van in a hotel garage and took handguns and smoke bombs, hiding them all under their clothes and in satchels. They called Sophie to get arial shots of the place. She sent back satellite photos. They waited until dark and returned to the warehouse. They saw a gunman watching the outside.

Taylor had her rifle aimed at his head. Caitlin climbed the next door building and was waiting on the roof. Marshall and Damien were on the side of the building on the other side of the warehouse. On Caitlin's signal, Taylor fired. Marshall kicked down the door. Damien went in first, gun drawn. Caitlin had gone through the window and rushed down the stairs, clearing each of the rooms.

The gunmen were taken by surprise. They hadn't heard the gunshot because Taylor used a silencer. The thugs drew their weapons and fired some shots, but they all missed. There were five men in the room, all of them dead.

Once they cleared all the rooms, the team started searching through pockets for wallets, taking phones, maps, papers anything that would give them a clue as to where to find Potovsky. They grabbed everything they found useful and left.


	4. Can't Sleep

Nevada

Brenda woke up in a cold sweat. She had spent many nights sleeping alone, but none of them like this. She was under a pile of blankets but was hot and cold at the same time. She desperately wanted her husband to hold her. She didn't know when she would be able to feel that again. She got out of bed and dried off with a towel. She hung her sheets to dry and wrapped herself in her driest blanket.

Brenda didn't have time to go through her files. She took out her notebook and wrote down everything she remembered about Potovsky.

It was 1997. She and her team were looking for a bomb that was to be purchased in Saint Petersberg. Allegedly, the bombmaker was involved with the bombing in Atlanta in 1996. This case hit home for Brenda. Her parents had gone to the Olympics. She could have lost them. They arranged for a buy. Marshall was going to buy the bomb. Taylor and Caitlin were to nab the bomber and Damien was to disable it.

They had two problems. The bomb wasn't actually finished when Marshall came to purchase it. His team was still working on it. The second problem was Potovsky's team got spooked. They tried to flee with the bomb and it went off, killing all of Potovsky's protegees, disfiguring Potovsky. Brenda's team made it out safely. Potovsky was arrested at the hospital and had been in jail ever since. The US and Russia worked out the trial diplomatically. Russia didn't appreciate US operatives in their territory, but they also wanted Potovsky. They agreed to forgive the breach of their sovereignty in order to keep him.

Look what good that did, Brenda thought to herself. Brenda recalled the names of the dead bombers. She thought their families might be helping Potovsky. She remembered Potovsky's file, where he grew up, who his childhood friends were, what all happened to his family. She made a list of likely associates. Unfortunately, she had no idea what happened to these people or what they looked like now.

She drank some water and sat down.

Los Angeles

Fritz couldn't sleep. He paced back and forth, unsure of what to do. His wife was in trouble and he couldn't do anything for her. He had no idea who was after her, where she went, how to end this mess. He sat on the couch, trying to overcome the anxiety that was plaguing him.

Throughout the city, six other men were also failing to sleep. They either gazed out their window or sat at the edge of the bed or hid under their sheets, hoping for something that would give them a sign as to what to do.

Arkansas

The team drove before morning. They found out that the gunmen were on route to Seattle. They called Sophie and gave them the address that had been circled on the map. They needed to figure out what was there. They stayed their course towards Los Angeles. They needed to find their leader. They found cash, weapons, fake passports, and photos. It was no surprise that the informant had been a setup. They were surprised however to find out that the man who called them was a bar owner in Adams Morgan. They sent his information to Sophie.

Washington, DC

Griffin went to the bar to check it out. The neighbor said it had been closed for days, which was unusual. Griffin managed to jimmy open a side window. He got inside and it smelled awful. He covered his nose and found the man dead in the back, a bullet to the head.

Griffin left and called MPD from a payphone. He said a man was dead and gave the location. He disguised his voice by using a British accent that he perfected in undergrad. He went back to his lab.

It looked like the man had been shot with a pistol. He waited for MPD's autopsy report. In the mean time, he started searching through TSA records of anyone who entered the country within the last week. He was looking for anyone of Russian descent, particularly ones from Potovksy's neighborhood with a military background.

While the search was running, Griffin looked through the file Caitlin had on the informant. Allegedly, he had information on a drug dealer who imported opium from Iran. Allegedly, the exporter had ties to a terrorist organization that was based in Lebanon. Griffin realized that Potovsky must have been planning this for a long time, long enough to set up such an elaborate rouse. Griffin started to back track. He needed to figure out when this plan started to form and who helped him.


	5. Let the Games Begin

Major Crimes

The team looked miserable. Nobody slept and everyone was on edge. They drank their coffee, mostly silent.

Commander Taylor came in with a case. There had been a break in at the gun store on Sepulveda.

When they got there, ATF Agent Kim was already there. There were missing Ar-15s, ammunition, and carrying cases. The surveillance camera had been shut down.

"When did the break in occur," Provenza asked.

"The owner noticed the weapons missing this morning, but he had been taking care of his sick wife." Agent Kim responded. "The guns were here last Thursday, but he has no idea when they were taken."

Tao asked to see the camera. The robbery likely happened soon after the camera went down.

The team dusted for prints. There wasn't much of interest. The lock to the store had been kicked in. The gun safe showed no signs of forced entry. The owner was the only employee, so one of the thieves probably cracked the safe.

They headed back to the squad room and got to work.

Pope's Office

Pope sat at his desk with Andrew.

"So we just sit and wait?" Pope asked him.

"Looks like it. They haven't found him or his associates yet."

"Any progress?"

"Not that anyone has shared with me, but who knows what that means."

Pope sighed. He knew it was better if he stayed out of it, but it still felt pretty lousy.

FBI Office

Fritz stared blankly at his computer screen. His brain couldn't do anything. I may as well be dead, Fritz thought to himself. I wouldn't feel so lousy.

Washington, DC

Griffin finally got a lead from the ICE records of who came into the country over the past week. He found a jewel thief that went to college with Potovsky and a man who was a suspected arms dealer to paramilitary groups around the world. Both of them came to the US with fake passports. The jewel thief went to LA and the arms dealer went to DC. He updated the team on both men. They weren't at LA yet. He wanted someone to find the jewel thief now. He probably was the key to financing Potovsky's scheme.

Griff remembered that Peaches married an FBI agent. Maybe he could help.

Oklahoma

The team had been driving almost non-stop. They figured their boss was hiding in a safe house somewhere in the west, but they didn't know which one. They also figured there was a team in Seattle waiting to smuggle Potovsky and his associates into Canada once their mission was over. He probably knew or would know soon that the hit squad he sent to DC was dead. They waited for Griffin to get them some intel on where to find Brenda or Potovsky. Until then, they drove west.

Major Crimes

Tao stared at the pictures from the robbery. Something was familiar, but he was too sleepy to think about it. He closed his eyes and fell asleep at his desk. The Chief appeared in his dream. "How would she solve this?" he thought.

Provenza noticed him sleeping. "Earth to Tao!" he threw a pencil at him, waking him up.

"What!" he muttered. When he looked down at the photo again, he finally got it. He put the photo of the robbery next to the photo of the Chief's front door.

"What are you doing Tao?" Provenza thought he lost it.

"The same man broke both of these locks," he finally said.

"You think the men who ransacked Chief's apartment broke into the gun store afterwards?"

"No. They broke in before, stole the guns and then had them when they broke into the apartment, but she was already gone."

Tao pulled up the security camera. It went off in the early morning the same day Brenda's apartment was ransacked.

"How do we find them when they shut off the camera?" Gabriel didn't know what to do about any of this information.

"We use any camera we can get, red light camera, neighboring store cameras, everything on that block and the surrounding ones."

"Didn't Pope tell us to stay out of this?" said Gabriel, not that he wanted to listen to Pope. He just wanted some plausible deniability.

"We're investigating the robbery as we were told," said Provenza.

Tao found a green Ford that drove passed the store three different times shortly before the camera went down. They were probably checking to make sure no one was around. The license plates on the car were missing. Tao searched for the car after the robbery, while Sanchez looked for any signs of the car being stolen before the robbery.

"I found nothing," Sanchez said.

"Try missing persons," suggested Provenza. If they stole a car to steal guns, maybe they killed the owner.

Sanchez found a bunch of missing people. He cross-checked them with DMV records. He found a man, Michael Mahon, who drove a 2005 green Ford Explorer. He was reported missing by the daycare when he didn't come to pick up his daughter. A uniform checked the house and saw no sign of foul play. They assumed he bailed when they didn't see him or his car. Sanchez went up to the driveway. He saw what looked like blood. He forced open the garage and found Mahon dead, a gunshot to the back of the head.

The smell was awful. He had been dead for a while. Now, they knew what car to look for.

Nevada

The silence was deafening. Brenda didn't want to alert anyone to her presence, so she stayed in the basement. She was waiting for as long as she could before she was going to head for New York. She thought about where Potovsky would look for her, maybe trying to escape to Mexico or Canada. She had no connections to New York, so she figured no one would find her there or be looking for her along the way. As far as she knew, Potovsky's men were circling the tri-state area, waiting for her to surface. She was trying to wait them out. Hopefully, they didn't get to Elaine.


	6. Old Bones

Elaine flew to Washington. She had a meeting to attend, and she didn't want to be late. She got off the plane and a driver was there to give her a ride. She made small talk with him, but he wasn't the talking type. He drove right past his turn.

"You were supposed to turn left," she told him.

He hit the gas. She knew she was in trouble.

Her actual driver was stuck with a flat tire. Someone had slashed his tires. He called it in, but by the time the Agency found out, Elaine had already been picked up.

Griffin got the call and he used the surveillance cameras to find the car that picked up Elaine. He found the car using satellite images.

Agents Medina and Kuo sought out the car. They had just returned from a mission in Italy, and should have had the day off, but the Agency needed every man and every women now. Potovsky must be found.

Medina drove, chugging a Monster as he went. Kuo saw the car up ahead. He undid his seatbelt and rolled down the window. When Medina pulled up, he shot the driver and jumped out of the Medina's car and into the town car. The town car swerved out of control. Kuo managed to pull the car into park.

Elaine had bumped her head, but other than that, she was fine.

Agent Medina pulled over. "You can come with us Ma'am."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"Well, we killed your kidnapper, so I would trust us if I were you."

She sighed and got into the car.

Of course, she was late.

"Elaine," the deputy director started, "you're late."

"Sorry, my ass got kidnapped on the way here. Way to send me a driver."

"Oh. I was hoping you got our message."

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want with me?"

"I understand Potovsky's men are in LA."

"Well, they ransacked a former agent's apartment, so I would guess they're in LA. What are you going to do about it? Blow air."

"My haven't you become contemptuous."

"Sorry if I'm a little fed up. We bust our balls putting our lives in dangers to catch criminals and when we catch them, we expect them not to escape to reek havoc in our lives."

"I take it she's in a secure location."

"She is."

"Where is she?"

"I can't tell you."

"What! Why the hell not?"

"Well whomever kidnapped me, probably assumed I knew where she was. The more people I tell, the more people will be targets. It's safer if you don't know."

"So you didn't register her in a safe house?"

"I did not." Brenda wasn't in a CIA safe house, well not an official one. Former operatives made their own safe houses in case they needed to hide. The agency ones were nice, but if there was a mole or a security breach, they were not going to protect you from anything.

"You're playing with fire."

"I don't have much of a choice. Do I?"

"I guess you don't."

"Why did you really call me out here?"

"You haven't heard from Jack have you?" Jack was a rogue operative who fled in the early 2000s. Allegedly, he killed two FBI agents in a sting gone terribly wrong. Many in the CIA believed he was set up, and rumor had it, agents and former agents would help him hide from the government.

"You're looking for Jack now? Is he really that important?"

"I know he and Brenda used to be close. I thought he might have stopped by to say a word."

"Well I haven't heard from him since he took off, and if he reached out to Brenda, I sure as hell don't know about it." Elaine didn't even know what Jack looked like anymore. The last time she saw him, he was a tall, handsome, brown-haired man with brown eyes that had the most delicate golden flecks. There was nothing delicate about his personality, however. He told you how it was, pure and simple, no candy coating or nothing. He was the field agent who mentored Brenda when she was a rookie. She was in trouble now. Would he come back?

Los Angeles

Major Crimes

Tao found the car used in the robbery. It had been taken out to the middle of nowhere and torched. SID was looking for any remaining clues, but it was doubtful.

Everyone was frustrated. Just when they had a lead, it was all gone.

Agent Howard had a non-eventful day at work. He hoped for a word from his wife, but there was nothing. He came home and was surprised to hear a man already there. He drew his gun to find a man, sitting in front of Brenda's boxes, reading a file.

"I wouldn't shoot if I were you," the man said, not even bothering to turn around. "It's a waste of lead, and it won't bring your wife back any faster."

"Who are you?"

"I'm a friend of your wife's. I hear she messed with the wrong psychopath."

"What do you want?"

"I want to help her end this mess. I don't like it when old skeletons come out to stir the pot. I always bury my dead. Potovsky needs to get dead."

"Who?"

"Don't you know anything? He's the nutcase who escaped from a Russian jail who's come here to kill your wife and her former team, and I'll be damned if he gets to do it. Now go make yourself useful and get me some whiskey."

"I don't have any whiskey."

"What!"

"I'm an alcoholic, not that it's any of your business."

"Who isn't in this day and age? Well, do you have anything?"

"I'm sure Brenda's wine is in the kitchen."

"Then pour me a glass. I'm trying to figure out how to find this jerk." Jack went through the files.

Fritz came back with a glass of wine. "How did you get in here anyway?"

Fort Worth, Texas

The gunmen had marked Fort Worth on their map, so the group stopped. What would they get here? The other papers looked like flight plans.

"Maybe they were going to get a plane here?" suggested Marshall.

"Or a pilot," said Taylor.

"Let's check it out," Caitlin said. They split in pairs. One of them went to check out anywhere to buy or charter a plane and the other went to look for pilots. Apparently, there was a dive bar where the pilots would hang out. Tonight, they would be making an appearance.

They got to the bar. Caitlin went for a low cut shirt to show some skin. She learned that by acting a little easy, men would tell her everything. Taylor went with the hip-hugger jeans and cowgirl hat. She pulled off the dumb blonde routine, quite well. Marshall, donned his leather jacket. He got a pack of cigarettes and tried to make himself look like a regular. Damien went with the retired jock look. He chatted about football, an easy way to make friends in Texas.

Apparently, there was this one company that was known for accepting suspicious charters. As long as you paid cash, they would fly you where you wanted to go, no questions. It was good money, but a lot of risk. You could go down for whatever was on that plane. They sought the best pilots, especially ones with debt. They liked them hungry, or desperate, depending on how you look at it.

The next morning, they would be paying this agency a visit, but for now, just play it cool. They drank and chatted with the locals. A couple of hours later, a group of men came in. They wore dark, expensive looking clothes and kept to themselves.

Taylor casually walked by. She knew how to play her cards. All she had to do was go home with one of these fools, and she would have her way into the company.


	7. New Leads

Texas

The pilot was short. He had light brown hair and dark brown eyes, not bad looking, but snotty and a little conceited. He loved talking about art history and high end Scotch. He wore a shield of pretense to cover up his insecurities. He was a man who came from nothing, and he wanted the world to know he was finally somebody.

He saw Taylor, and he could not look away. She was perfect, about 5'6, medium length blonde hair, blue eyes, still had muscular legs and a behind to kill for from playing soccer at Yale, even though those years were long behind her. She had an average sized chest, but it was in a push up bra to get all the cleavage she could.

She didn't have to say a word. All she needed was a smile and the right look with her eyes, like she was imagining him naked. The easiest way to get to a man with an ego was to let him think you turned him on. He quickly bought her a drink, eager to show off his platinum credit card. He didn't know that she was born into money, and it did not impress her.

They talked for a bit, well he mostly talked about himself, and she listened, periodically sending "I'm so into you" signals. He took her home and fell asleep after their dalliance, which was not very eventful, and she stole the magnetic strip from his work id. She replaced the strip with one from a library card, so he wouldn't be suspicious. She also got a picture of his uniform, so it could be copied. She copied the contents of his laptop onto a flash drive and stole a glass for his fingerprints, in case she needed them.

Taylor wrote until we meet again on his mirror with lipstick.

Nevada

The silence was getting to Brenda. She had always been a bit of a loner, always eager to get her head wrapped up in some job or project, but even she needed some type of noise, Joel, the tv, a person. She had gotten past thinking about Fritz constantly. She missed him like crazy, but if she thought about him too much, she would cry her eyes out. In this desert, she couldn't afford the tears, and her heart couldn't take the stress, so she did her best to keep her head vacant.

That only worked for so long. She searched around the basement for something to do. She found a biography on Virginia Woolf. "Ugh!" Brenda said aloud as she looked at it. She knocked off the dust. It was either this or a playboy that was definitely too nasty to touch.

She started to read. Virginia came from a British family well-connected in the Victorian literary society. Her fondest childhood memory was at the Godrevy lighthouse. It was near her family's summer home, where unsurprisingly, she spent her summers. Brenda spent her summers driving to Mississippi to visit her redneck cousins. They loved making muskrat stew nasty.

Brenda made it through the book, surprised at how much she and Virginia had in common. Virginia was very talented but not very social, seldom taking breaks through out her career. Her troubled past caused her to bury herself in the work, sometimes causing breaking points from all of the stress on top of her. Her peculiarities had a way of masking her inner strength which functioned like a stream of consciousness, and she used that strength to delve into the emotions and psychology of her characters just as Brenda saw through people who came into her interrogation room. Virginia's husband was her better half, and the best feeling she every felt was being wanted by him.

I think I would have been friends with her, Brenda thought as she closed her eyes to rest.

Los Angeles

Fritz woke up to the smell of pancakes. This mystery man could cook?

"About time you woke up. We got a lot of work to do today, and by we, I mean you."

"What are you talking about?" Fritz stumbled into the kitchen.

"I need you to check out some leads for me. There's a folder on the table for you."

Fritz flipped through it. "Who are these people?"

"I suspect they're connected to Potovsky. One of them runs an outfit that charters planes in Austin. Another owns a hotel chain across the US. The third one works for the State Department."

Fritz was impressed. This guy could work. It all made sense. Potovsky needed a way of getting in the country without going through TSA, and his men needed documents. The only thing they were missing was guns. "Do you know how they got their guns?"

"My guess, the gun shop that was robbed last week. There was a similar heist in Virginia the week before. I think he has at least two teams, maybe more, but we don't need to worry about them, yet."

"We don't."

"No. First we need to find his resources and starve him off. Now eat up. This'll be a long day." The pancakes came with hot italian sausage and scrambled eggs. It was quite a feast.

Fritz fed Joel, washed his hands and set the table. He went to brew some coffee, but it was already there. This guy would have made a great housewife.

They didn't talk much. Fritz did the dishes and then headed out to work. Jack went back to work, making phone calls, digging through files, looking through photographs and reading charts. He mostly worked on paper. He stayed off the grid.

Major Crimes

Tao tore through the remnants of the burnt out car. He found the butt of a cigarette that wasn't sold in the US. It was an expensive, and only sold in Russia, likely belonging to one of the robbers. The DNA on it was likely destroyed, but they ran the test anyway.

He also pulled a bunch of prints from the mirrors on the car. He ran them all through the system, getting a match one of them. The file was locked down by the State Department. How odd?

He called Agent Howard and sent him the information. Maybe he could figure out who this guy really was.

Texas

They took surveillance photos of the charter company from across the street. There was a guard on the inside that would screen for customers and an employee entrance on the side that required a card swipe. They didn't see any indication of an iris or a fingerprint scan. They really needed access to the security footage.

DC

Griffin had decrypted contents on the laptop. He was filtering through the information, looking for jobs, who commissioned them, payouts, routes, anything that would lead to Potovsky or his men. Unfortunately, the laptop only had the jobs of this pilot. Griffin needed access into the whole company.

He was in the process of reverse engineering the pilot's login and password, so he could build a similar one to hack into the system. He needed to figure out how the system worked, so he could build a login with top-level security clearance. He could have done this faster by just sending a spam bot and sneaking in, but he didn't want to leave any trace. He wanted the system to think that only authorized people were there.

It was going to be a while. While Griffin was waiting for the login to finish, he could start on a basic sweeper program, a program to follow his fake login and erase the signs that it had ever entered the system. It's like having someone close doors for you after you walk through them. He would have to modify it once he knew what type of system he was entering, but the basic code for every sweeper program was the same.

Griffin gulped his coffee as he worked. He needed as much energy as he could get.


	8. Converging

I have an idea as to how I want this story to end, but I haven't figured out how I'm going to get there yet. I also have a full-time job right now, so I can't write as often as I used too. Bear with me.

Seattle

Potovsky hid in a hotel room on the edge of the city. He waited a long time for his revenge and he was going to do it in style. He was obsessed with his work, at the expense of his personal life. His team was his family, and that wretched woman took them from him. He was ready to return the favor. He had amassed quite an army: DC, TN, Los Angeles, Seattle and he had a group ready to hide him once he got to Vancouver.

All he had to do was wait. His time would come soon.

DC

Griffin finally got access into the flight company's computer system. He started copying it onto a hard drive. He wanted to do the search on his computer in case he got caught. He didn't want the company to know what file he wanted- so he took them all. Normally, this would take ages, but Griffin had 5 different computers for the job, each of them with a lot of ram and the fastest of processors. Piece by piece, he grabbed everything. He started looking for any and all signs of Potovsky's crew: flight patterns, money transfers, hotel reservations, food orders.

Three hours later.

A pattern emerged on Griffin's screen. About two days before Potovsky escaped, the company purchased a massive amount cigarettes, vodka, and high end pastries, all known favorites of Potovsky. They definitely flew him into the states. Griffin found their international flights from that week. Allegedly, they had delivered school books to Russian children. Griffin started looking for everything on the flight he could get. The officials who cleared the trip. The pilot, where they got the gas, who was working at the strip when they took off and when they came back. Griffin made a matrix of everyone. Hopefully, he could figure out who knows whom and tie someone to Potovsky.

Los Angeles

The Apartment

Jack was trying to figure out a plan of attack. Brenda was hiding, somewhere. Her former team was presumably told to hid as well; who knows if they listened. Potovsky's too much of a coward to be in LA. He likes to strike from a distance. Serves him right he got taken down because of his own bomb. He finally couldn't escape the havoc he reeked on the world. He's probably not too far away; Oregon, Nevada, somewhere he could get to LA in a day or too. He's probably lying in wait in either a basement or a condo; somewhere, the public won't see him.

He needed to bleed out Potovsky first, give him a reason to show his ugly face.

The FBI office

The fingerprints came back belonging to an unknown criminal, who was tied to two other armed crimes. Previously, he hit a 7-11 and did a carjacking. Fritz got the sketch they had of his face. He sent it back to Major Crimes, not very much. Fritz went back the file Jack gave him. He couldn't find anything concrete on the charter company. They made a lot of money, flying goods for rich people. They had their regular inspections, and nothing came up. Their taxes were all in order. They had no complaints or even minor offenses. This was a little suspicious, actually very much so. The very best companies screw up sometimes, but if you're running a racket, you might sacrifice some profit to make sure no one ever has a reason to give you a second look. Fritz needed more than a gut feeling. Let's try the other two.

The hotel mogul was shady. He had been implicated in various scandals, high end call girls, drugs, importing Cuban cigars, but somehow, charges never came his way. As the dominoes fell around everyone else, he could just walk away. He must have had top notch counsel, and maybe a little bit more.

Fritz tried the third guy. Oh it was a she. Opal Thompson, 32, has worked for the state department for 3 years. She worked her way up rather quickly in that time. Before the State Department, she was a lawyer for a white collar firm. He didn't immediately see a connection between the three, but maybe that was the point. It was time to look further: schools, families, friends, events. He started a public search: looking for any family or friend connections, as well as any photographs on the internet, previous flights/vacations, credit card charges to put them in the same restaurant or theater. He was going to figure out how these people were connected.

Eventually, he noticed something. The hotel guy and the airplane guy were in the same fraternity and both helped sponsor a leadership event in Houston Texas, two years ago. Fritz needed to get financial records since this event, but this was not nearly enough for a warrant, and where did Opal fit in?

Nevada

Marshall was working on the uniform. He looked the most like a pilot, tall, clean-cut, thin, great vision. He also had a great smile and could be a bit of a womanizer, which was funny because he was actually gay, but he could assume any part. He had learned a lot under Brenda's wing.

Caitlin was analyzing the satellite photographs taken near the private airport where the company flew. She was looking for anything that would give her insight as to their operations. Damien found the CEO of the company, Charles Swinn. He was having lunch in a high end country club. Damien drew up fake credentials, making himself out to be an exec with Jay-Z's label. He walked right past the CEO, using a nifty device that managed to copy all of his phone data with the press of one button. He uploaded the data to Griffin, so he could analyze it.

Major Crimes

Tao would have ripped out his hair if he had any. "The fingerprint was totally useless."

"Maybe not," said Gabriel. "Don't you find it odd that a fingerprint record was sealed for a guy that only committed two crimes, neither of which was particularly notorious."

"So."

"So, there's more to the story than this. I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI record was incomplete."

"How do we get a complete picture?" Flynn asked.

"We need someone with higher clearance," said Provenza. He remembered Brenda's friend Elaine from the Malik case. Maybe she could figure out this whole mess. Provenza needed to figure out how to get a hold of her. Luckily, he kept records of everything. He started going through his files from 2006, and he found her contact info.

DC

The contact info Damien got was super helpful. Most of it was ordinary, but there were two numbers that bounced around until they finally got to an office line in New York and another line in Washington, DC. Griffin figured out who owned these phones, and he found a hotel playboy and a bureaucrat.

Interesting, why would a government official, a hotel chain owner and a private flight owner all be in cahoots with each other. Griffin started doing his normal analysis. He had a mega matrix on everything. Every secret database, every public one, Griffin spent years building a giant system of the world, including data on people, information on climates, resources, models of different scenarios, indicators that an event was either an accident or not, information on poisons, everything a crime solver could possibly want.

Luckily, Griffin takes his job seriously, and only uses his power for good. He catches criminals, helps provide resources to those in need and has been known to be very helpful in rescue missions. Sometimes he wondered about the moral implications of having access to everyone's secrets, especially when most people didn't know of his existence. He settled on the idea, however, that someone was going to get this job in the "war on terror" world, whether it was justified or not, and if it had to be someone, he may as well take the job and do the best he could to make the world a little brighter.

Griffin found something. The bureaucrat had legally changed her name. She used to be Susie Winston, daughter of Kyle Winston, a disgraced investment banker who killed himself in jail during a 10 year sentence for insider trading and other financial crimes. It had been a big case at the time. Many of Kyle's friends were implicated in the scandal, but two escaped without any attention. One owned a hotel chain and the other a private flight company.


	9. It all pours out

My Dearest Fritzi,

I miss you terribly, and there are so many things that I wish I had told you. I wish I had kissed you and told you how much I loved you that morning instead of sleeping in. I wish I had told you how much you mean to me, that you have made me happier than I ever thought I could be. Most of all, I wish I had told you about my past. Sometimes, I feel like I am living a lie, that you don't know who I really am. I worried that if you knew the real me, you would see how much baggage I am carrying, how fragile I really am. I hid so much from you and from the world, and now it has all come crashing down. I think it's time for you hear the truth.

I was an interrogator for the company, but what I told you was both true and misleading. I wasn't always an interrogator. I started off as a field agent. I began my career with the agency as a probie learning from a senior field agent. He taught me everything: how to spot a spy without giving yourself away; how to blend into a crowd, how to learn every escape route and every place to find cover, how to scale buildings and dash out of fire escapes, how to lull people into trusting you.

I got my first true look into the agency when we were in Budapest. As I was trained, I spotted our target entering a French restaurant. My partner told me to stand guard at the alley. When the man came outside for his smoke break, my partner shot him, execution style. We slowly walked along and blended right into the crowd, as if nothing happened at all. It completely rattled me, but what scared me even more was how easy it all was to adjust to. A couple of hits later, and it becomes routine, like any other part of the job. This is when I felt like my soul was slipping away.

Eventually, I became a senior field agent, and I had my own probie. I taught her, just as I had been taught, and it became my job to shoot the bad guys. Sometimes, I wonder what makes me any different than the people I arrest. Maybe that's why I was so obsessed with catching killers. When I started arresting people, I had a goal of catching as many killers as targets I killed, but when I got there, absolution never came. I went after more of them and more, but it was never enough.

Back to the story, we had a mission, to take down a bomb maker in Moscow. We couldn't just shoot him. We needed to get to his bombs. The easiest way to do that was to become his client. We sent a Russian man to buy one bomb and get it installed into a car. He paid for it and we staged a death. He went back 6 months later and ordered a second bomb. When he came to install it, we came to nab him. Apparently, his team was still working on the bomb, and it went off.

I should have died that day. I still don't know how I didn't, but my partner managed to grab me and push me to the ground, narrowly escaping the shrapnel. I'll never be able to thank her enough for that. The bomb maker's team all died and he was permanently disfigured. Half his face is just a scarred up mess. He went from the hospital to prison to serve what was supposed to be a life sentence, but somehow, he got out.

I assume he came after my team as well, as he blames us for what happened to him. After Moscow, I decided to become an interrogator. I had enough of the field and I almost got my partner and the other agents with us all killed. I got the bad guys to talk, but I never knew what happened to them afterwards. Some would say that's much better than being the one to pull the trigger, but I always feared those men faced a fate worse than death.

I know I should have told you about all of this a long time ago, but there was never a good time. Before I knew it, I was in love, and the last thing I wanted was to scare you away with the skeletons in my closet. Well, it appears one of them has decided to come back out, so now I have to face it.

I hope you are protecting yourself and staying safe. Potovsky is a madman, and he has spent over a decade thinking about how he wants revenge.

I hope that when this is all over, we can embrace once more and enjoy ourselves in a way that only we can. My biggest fear is that I will never get to see you again, but I have to stay positive. I need all of willpower I can muster.

As I sit here, surrounded by all of my inner demons, thinking of when I will get to gaze into your big brown eyes gives me solace.

With all my love,

Brenda

Brenda takes her letter, puts it in a drawer, and starts drinking water. It's so hot right now.


	10. Putting the Pieces Together

Washington DC

Griffin was sifting through the charter companies flight plans. Apparently, they had a trip from Tennessee to Seattle planned, but it got cancelled when the "cargo" didn't show.

They also had a trip from Seattle to Canada planned for a week from today. Griffin checked out the hotel mogul. He had a hotel in TN, Seattle and one in Vancouver, It seemed to all fit.

He needed to find out more about this Susie Winston. Griffin started searching for everything: school records, medical history, employment history, friends. He was looking for anything to connect her to the plane company or the hotel mogul.

Something was odd. She had an internship with a company in college that paid 60k a year. What kind of part time job would pay that much? Griffin looked up the business and it was a shell. Griffin had a feeling that when he traced it, it would come back to one of his two other suspects.

Los Angeles

Jack got a phone call from a friend. Apparently, there was a group of people holed up in this hotel. They had different rooms rented and would shift from suite to suite. All of the rooms were reserved in different names. It sounded promising. Jack wrote down the name of the hotel.

Jack went to the library and pulled up the hotel on google maps. He started looking for places where there would be a camera near the hotel. He managed to send a message to Griffin and told him to check out the hotel and try and get feeds from these cameras.

FBI

Fritz was trying to figure out what the deal was with Opal, but as soon as he mentioned her name, people would clam up. He was going to need some help. He sent the information to Buzz and asked him to look into her.

As it turns out, Opal has a foursquare, so Buzz was able to look at her travel plans. She spent a lot of time traveling to NY, DC, and Texas. Buzz sent the information back to Fritz. "Does the government usually pay for this much travel for an employee at her level?"

"No," Fritz found it odd. "I'll look into it." As it turns out, she flew privately. At first it was first class, then she was taking chartered flights. A lot of money for her salary. Her money was coming from somewhere.

Texas

Caitlin and her team were studying the layout of the company. They needed to know everything: the guards route, camera feeds, entrance and egress points, alarm systems. Caitlin was always one for pen and paper. Her cousin was the tech genius. He sent Marshall data, and she used it to make hand drawn plans. Their idea was to disable the alarm system and put the security videos on a loop, raid the company at night, seize any supplies intended for Potovsky and take off for Seattle.

Damien spent the week making friends with the other pilots in the city. He managed to secure a flight for the team for Seattle. They would be there waiting when Potovsky was ready to move.

Washington, DC

Griffin was going through the video feeds that Jack suggested. He was happy that there was an ally in the west to help out. There was too much footage to watch it all, so Griffin used an algorithm to look for repeating faces, focusing on tall males with features suggesting Eastern European descent. He found a few men who entered and left the hotel many times. He ran their faces through the recognition software and then looked into the faces of everyone in the same frame as them more than once.

Griffin found a teenager who appeared to be a courier for the Russian men. Griffin saw what looked like a handoff. He knew from experience that kids who were used as carriers were often from poor families and desperate for money and were also often killed once they were no longer useful. Griffin sent the information to Jack. This kid needed to be found and fast.

Major Crimes

Tao came in to help Buzz try and figure out Opal. They looked for hours, both tired and frustrated. "I think it's time for a break," Buzz said. "My eyes are getting crossed."

"Yeah, I'm getting no where."

"Pizza?"

They headed out to a place down the street and grabbed a bite to eat. The news was playing on the TV. A madam in Maine was arrested for blackmailing her former clients.

"That's it," Tao yelled out.

"You want a hooker?"

"No, Buzz. Blackmail. That's how she made her money."

They went back to the squad room. It took some time to find, but she had a secret e-mail account in a false name. They couldn't access the e-mails, but they could give the account info to Fritz, so he could get a warrant.

Seattle

Potovsky was getting anxious. His crew should have arrived days ago. He hadn't heard from them and he didn't want to contact the charter company, lest anyone notice a connection. He needed to figure out what happened to them.

"Forget about them," Nikolai, his second in command, snarled. "They probably took the cash and bounced. We move without them. We still have our west coast team."

"Who failed to find our target and have no idea where she went."

"She'll come back. All we need to do is find the other agents first. If she hears her precious babies are in trouble, she'll come running."

"And where are they?"

"They are …." Who the hell knew. They escaped too and took off, leaving their cars and cell phones behind. They haven't sent an e-mail, used a bank or a credit card. They could be anywhere in the country.


End file.
